Gijs-Jan
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Posts posted by Gijs-Jan
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Heh.
Hypothetically (as I haven't seen the source code) would it be possible to re-enable this behaviour but make the UFO a "do not seek" zone?
Very easily. It's a switch in the aiprops.xml; so you don't need to alter the source code.
The problematic part is balancing it out, which takes time.
The trepidation to enter the UFO is handled by the Civilian "Goal" attribute in aiprops.xml
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From the AI perspective, there's no real difference between the behaviors applied to the Civilians and the Aliens.
It all comes down to weight balancing, and I focused on the Alien weights instead of Civilian.
It goes to show how much can be gained through altering the weights as well.
(Although the Civilian AI might need some extra weights to make "more sense" of the world, the current weights available to the AI are all constructed to model a world that emphasis on hunting down something.)
I think that XNT Into Darkness mod has Civilian AI weights which are better balanced.
TacticalDragon spent some time on that.
I added it to my shortlist though.
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This post is a bit more direct to the point just to clarify everything, I love the fact that you guys try to analyze the AI in the game, much as I did years ago in Xcom:EU. I also love the discussion and interaction, and as during development will try to incorporate things which are interesting. I'm also flattered by the people defending me in this subject. Thank you, and know that I do not see any of these posts as insult, only opportunity to either explain or efforts to help correct faulty AI behavior. God knows that the track record of bugs in the past resulted in some pretty weird behavior.
So this isn't an angry post, it's just to clarify; as I seem to be contradicting myself and causing confusion:
Yes, the aggressivity is triggered upon proximity.
Yes, you could consider this to be cheating. (* See argument below)
No, the AI still doesn't know exactly where you are. Just that it should move into a position you most likely will be.
In case of UFO's, this results in storming outside. (As this is the most viable location for you to be; the AI knows the UFO is empty)
* My Excuse: in a first iteration of the game, when probabilistic estimation of positions was enabled, the AI became near omnipotent legally because it had units spread out all over the map, and took into account that the Human player always arrives from a certain origin. It derived the almost exact position of every unit, legally.
Why did I build in this cheat then?
- It approximates the legal behavior; but only when we want it.
- It doesn't give the AI legal omnipotence, which just plain sucks.
- It's orders of magnitudes faster. (AI turn time decrease)
Yes, I consider the case of the AI to know where you are in terms of grenading through/over doors a bug.
However, it's most likely due to LOS calculation problems. The AI only uses the logic of the game to tell it whether it should be able to see something. In the past it's been shown that some UFOs have problems with LOS not being calculated correctly symmetrically. (I can see you; you can't see me)
Yes, I consider AI omnipotence a bug. It should not happen, and I will deal with it on a case by case basis.
The cases I asked a save of, I found to be suspect.
No, I don't consider the AI becoming aggressive as you move near it a bug. It has no situational awareness; it does not know your TU, your weapons & etc unless it has seen you. I consider this an opportunity for the player to become inventive and counter a threat. Player intelligence far outweighs the benefits received from this.
No, I don't consider the AI rushing outside the UFO once you come near it to be a bug. Lore wise there is no reason whatsoever for it to not be able to view the tiles outside the UFO. (I personally think there's outside cam and/or windows)
It creates for very entertaining play if you know how to counter it. The AI will also not start rushing units one after another in a Xcom:EU lemmings kind of death, and will "learn" if you camp the outside. Which the player then in turn needs to counter.
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Which is why I request the save, so I can take a look at it.
There are checks in place to make sure the AI is not just magically fed the correct location and distance.
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I guess AI anti-stuck mechanism making it teleport ten to thirty spaces for no TUS cost could be called cheating as well.
I don't complain tho'. As long as it does not teleport the drone saucer inside the building so it cant move out.
If this happens it's just a plain bug. Nothing in my code gives the AI the ability to teleport for free.
I'm pretty sure you are referring to the animations being skipped bug; which was fixed quite a while ago.
Like before; try to provide a save and I'll look into it
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It's more or less how it works. The AI is just fed the aggressivity along with the normal information.
So the AI might still decide not to act on it.
Keep in mind though that this happens with about 10% chance (hence the once in ten turns comment).
This is not "spazzing out", and it's behavior that far more often than not results in correct behavior.
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I knew it.
Before this gets out of hand; this is purely the aggressivity enabling. The AI still has no information on your exact whereabouts. It does not know whether it's walking into a deathtrap or not.
The reason why some of these stick out though is that it >can<, >sometimes< severely punish wrong tactics.
Which in my opinion, is as it should. Prepared and unprepared players alike would get the same reaction, with the same RNG.
It >might< interact with the AIs ability to predict whether you have spent your TU, but this system, again, does not cheat.
(Or it should not)
The behavior is unpredictable, and if you stick to "correct" tactics you shouldn't be punished.
However, as I said before, if anyone can provide me with a save; I'll happily look into it to see if a bug is causing any misbehavior.
My hunch though is that you guys remember the times the AI & the RNG gods rolled against you; while not remembering the times the AI made a "mistake" by running into well defended units.
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I'll chime in as well; as this issue seems to pop up quite a bit, just provide me with a save and I'll look into what's going wrong.
And, I've got no problems with admitting when I've made a mistake. More than enough bugs popped up during alpha that I have no problem with admitting fault.
Anyway, as I said before; there is a trigger for aggressivity when a unit nears the AI.
And if you camp; you're quickly letting it get a *heck* of a lot of information. (Especially during base defense where the AI has squadsight on near damn your entire base from the start)
As for the 10 turns Chris refers to; this is the aggressivity, not a ping to the AI on where you are.
Just an incentive for it to move towards you.
If you provide a save and I can see that it's a bug, I'll fix it.
The grenade scenario makes me think it's a bug, however with the upcoming projects I've had to temporarily switch my attention. So I can't go bug-hunting without a reproducible scenario.
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They can be removed; so an update will get into the community edition.
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I personally loved UFO:Extraterrestrials re-imagining of the Geoscape.
(Spoiler; I had it on repeat during development)
[video=youtube;22jiNQgM7qw]
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I agree with the concepts of the points falling under "Ugly", although not entirely their contents.
Expectation management is a fickle thing, and quality management is a difficult process anywhere, in IT doubly so.
And yes, some of it could've been done better. But I'd like to take a minute to acknowledge that this is Goldhawk Interactive's first title, and as such is very much a learning process. I think the efforts that have gone into this game from Chris and the team have been nothing less than herculean. But it is something to consider for the next project.
It should also be noted that from the development side most of us finally took a bit of a break after the release.
I myself have been on a single week of holiday since I started working on Xenonauts.
This is one of the reasons why bugfixing appeared to slow down a bit after release 1.07.
Aside from that, most of what falls under "Bad" I see as personal preference. I personally really like the music (which given the hours spent listening to it is quite the accomplishment.), and same goes for the overall artstyle. Yes, the map pack could've been bigger, but I think we got a bit spoiled by Skitso's impressive work and help. The rest are things to consider for a potential X:II or for the community edition (on which some of us still occasionally work!).
And, obviously, my thanks for the high praise on the AI.
All in all, I like to thank you for voicing your opinion; now and in the past.
I myself prefer fans vocal rather than silent and have enjoyed reading the community's feedback on the forum and occasional PM.
While I didn't reply to all of them (or even frequently), do know that I (and more so Chris and the others) did read them.
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Problem is the SAME AI and stats are shared for ALL friendlies.
You can override it per race / rank.
However; the running towards Reapers is probably something that's broken. I've put it on my list!
(Mind you; it probably is just a value in the aiprops.xml gone wrong)
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Gijs!
Beta Wraith Behavior
Thanks
I'll probably enable a pre-teleport weight set and post-teleport weight set in a mod.
And add a range check maybe for teleport as well.
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Luckily; the Wraith problem is probably easily solved. Upload some saves and I'll take a look next week
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To go slightly back on topic -
Can anyone say if the alien AI has 'squad sight' in the same way that players do; that is to say that if one alien can see you then all of the others on the map know exactly where all of your guys are?
certainly don't think there are any huge problems with grenades (either alien or human) but the AI does at times do some weird stuff - Aliens that normally hug cover suddenly breaking out to hurl grenades at you, on the only turn when you didn't have reaction fire ready being a prime example.
The AI does have squad sight; and does record what you do in its turn (if you get into LOS of an alien unit); just like the human player.
Essentially I modeled the AI to have the same limitations as the human player.
As for the reaction fire; sorry, but I haven't coded in any checks with regards to that AFAIK.
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The distant opening is (to my eyes) a bug which I'll fix once I find some free time for it. :-)
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My 2 cents, just to make sure you guys know I still read these threads as well!
The AI is set to really "punish" players for certain tactics, aka, grouping your units together. Or better said; it just immediately determines its better to 'nade everyone to hell than to waste time shooting at individual units.
So my advice is the same as every sound commander; don't group your units together!
As for the AI cheating; it's not my intent to have the AI cheat, but lord knows multiple bugs have snuck through in the past.
If you guys manage to get me saves which illustrate the behavior; I promise I'll still look into them and make sure that any resulting patches will roll out with the community edition.
The magic door opening does seem like a bug; from a code perspective it really shouldn't be able to do that unless the unit is adjacent to the door. Maybe there's some problem going on with LOS not updating for players until after a AI unit moved away from the door. Again, give me a save; and I'll look into it.
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Oh they did react, but the alien survived a point blank shotgun shot. It's just that I left only 1 with enough TU for reaction shot... and the aliens "somehow knew that" because they didn't leave the UFO when I had 2+ ready for reaction shooting.
The AI really has no knowledge on your TU; it's pure random chance that the aggressiveness is triggered.
However; you'll probably only remember the time when they blasted your most precious soldiers to bits
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It should be in the new patch; and that should include a fix for AI not using doors if you block them. (which apparently is also in OpenXCOM, hilariously enough)
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The aggressiveness isn't all-knowing; it has a certain chance to occur.
That, coupled with the fact that the AI doesn't know your location, makes me chalk it down under necessities, instead of "cheating".
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Then kudos and that extra cookie to you Gijs-Jan! To develop a bit on my example, I had a single guy watching over the entrance of the UFO for 8 turns, while the rest swiped the map. Nobody ever went out of it, except on the ninth turn, the turn where I approached carelessly (no cover, no end turn crouching) with my 2 wounded lieutenants. Guess what, the next alien turn saw an Andron pop out and launch a burst killing both lieutenant.
I'm 100% sure there was no alien spotter left alive on the map. So this can only be nice luck from AI (coming out this turn from the UFO) or ... cheating. But I trust your word.
That's probably the aggressiveness triggering. If you would have debug view on the UFO; you would see the AI moving around a lot inside as well. The AI has no knowledge on where your troops are located outside (or it might through a glitch in LOS with the UFO?); so it won't know what to expect in terms of opposition, or how to position itself perfectly. However, due to the nearness it will try to explore around itself in an effort to find someone.
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Haha, sadly no. I thought about it, but I opted not to; to give you guys a fighting chance with the reaction fire campers and all..
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Well, theoretically; but the chance is so low, it might just as well not happen.
The AI is cheating but I guess that's ok
in Xenonauts General Discussion
Posted
Love to hear things like this; and I added it to my list of things to look at.